The Crimson Carnival: Chapter V, Escaping Carnivorous Cannibal Clowns

--- Gregory Fischer ---

“Shit. Shit. Shit!” He cursed, under his breath as he ducked and hid in the shadows of the carnival attractions. (No traps. Lures to bring prey in.)

And given the sheer number of cries he could hear, he didn’t doubt how effective a lure it was. Cries and screams that reminded him so much of (innocents ran through the streets, fleeing from the soldiers as-)

He shook his head. (No. Can’t get lost in memories. Need to protect the kid.)

“W-what’s going on?” The little one asked him, voice shaking in fright.

“Noth-” He bit his tongue, because while he didn’t want to scare the child, (lying won’t help here.) “There are… There are monsters here.”

“Mon-Monsters?” The kid repeated with no small amount of worry.

“They’re dressed like the clowns.” He tried to explain. “And they’re… They’re hurting people… We need to run and hide.”

“What… what about big sis?” The lost child frowned.

(Because of course they would…) He grimaced, not sure how to tell the kid their sister was probably dead. “We… We’ll try to find her, but… we need to find a way out of the park too. We need to get away from-”

The fabric of the wall next to them was ripped to the side, revealing a smiling clown with a maw full of bloodstained fangs and glowing red eyes. “What do we have here?”

He dropped the kid, hoping the fall wouldn’t hurt them too badly, as he stood and turned towards the clown before quickly delivering an Opening Strike to their chest and following up with a Heated Fist to their face.

The clown stumbled back, despite the seemingly broken angle of its neck. The fact that it didn’t drop from such an injury a testament to its inhuman strength. (Or to how much Briar’s book weakened me.)

He was sure he put more magic into those flames, enough to burn the face off of most threats and there were barely any burns on this thing's face. A fact that did not bode well, given the two other clowns he could see behind this one turning away from the corpse they were making their meal.

The first clown gripped the top of its head before snapping it back into place, crimson eyes never leaving Gregory as it stared in shock. “How did someone like you make it here? The night ‘s just begun~”

Normally, he’d happily bet on his ability to take the trio of clowns in a fight, no matter their inhuman nature, but between the book limiting his spellwork and the kid…

He glanced behind him where the lost child was cowering as he pulled out his pack of smokes, before pulling one out with his lips and lighting it with a snap of his prosthetic fingers.

As the smoke entered his lungs he could feel the chemicals twisting inside him, sparking off a chain reaction that filled him with power.

The clown took this moment to rush him, something he expected and easily parried with his arm, the monster’s claws causing sparks to fly off his prosthetic.

Having clearly expected that to rip through his arm, the untrained clown stumbled off balance leaving him free to grab it by the back of its head and slam his metal fist into its face with as much force as he could muster. Shattering the monster’s nose as he sent it flying onto its back in a burst of flames nearly twice the size of his previous Heat Fist.

The other two clowns growled as they started towards him, one dropping to all four as the other ripped out one of the beams supporting the tent, causing it to half collapse behind them.

Inhaling as deeply as he could, he found his Special Smoke fading faster than it normally did. (Another side effect of this stupid book?)

With time not on his side, he took a stance ready to fight the two remaining Carnivorous Clowns. Or he would have if the rest of the tent didn’t promptly collapse on top of them, leaving the pair struggling to get out from under the tarp.

A barking sound drew his attention towards Mr. Peabody and another shattered support pipe, where the dog barked again before running off.

He shook his head and glanced at the pinned monsters, something that let him notice an even larger number of blood red eyes looking his way from the other side of the collapsed tent.

“Yeah, let’s follow the dog.” He told the kid, picking them up before using the last of his Special Smoke’s power to take off as fast as he could.

All around him the screams had begun to dim, a sign that was made all the more worrying as more and more growling could be heard alongside the sound of meat being ripped apart.

“You’ve any idea where you’re going?” He couldn’t help but ask the dog he was following in the hopes that what Briar had said about it being a good scout held true.

They both skidded to a stop as they came across a road covered in bodies and ferally feasting beasts. A few of which were slowly turning their way as the fireworks above lit the scene in even more gruesome detail.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Going to take this as a no.” He grimaced, ready to turn around and try another route.

“Mister the mean clowns!” The kid cried, causing him to glance over his shoulder and see the way they’d come being cut off by a number of the Carnivorous Clowns competitively climbing atop each other in pursuit of their mutual prey.

“Fuck!” He cursed, just as Mr. Peabody somehow tore a hole in a nearby tent before sprinting through it. “Fuck it!”

With nowhere else to go he continued to follow after the dog as it tore a hole through the otherside of an attraction filled with (flammable) prizes. (Well, there’s an idea!)

Clenching his prosthetic hand, he infused it with as much heat as he could while so close to the kid before running it across the prizes as he passed them by, hoping that a small fire would be enough to slow the clowns down.

On the other side of the now burning attraction he found himself running into a brick building far more firmly built than the cloth tents that made up the rest. Or rather he found himself spinning on his heel, so that when he crashed into the broken window the kid wouldn’t be hurt.

His head hit the ground with a painful thud as he toppled over the window sill and into a pile of broken glass. Something he would’ve been more worried about if he didn’t see slowly fading pages floating around him. A sign that Briar’s book had taken the damage in his stead, if he understood her prior explanation right. (Guess it is good for something after all.)

“You okay?” He asked the kid, not sure if said book magic had protected the kid from all of that glass.

The lost child nodded but didn’t say anything, looking more than a little overwhelmed by everything that was going on.

“Good.” He nodded back, before kicking off the wall as he sat and tried to climb to his feet.

As he did so he couldn’t help but glance through the window he’d come through, and the fabric of the tent in turn. The fire he’d started had spread a lot faster than he’d expected, though he could still just make out a couple of clowns trying to chase after in spite of that.

“This way!” A voice shouted, drawing his attention to a door that was swinging shut.

Knowing his only other option was to risk the monster infested streets once more, he ran through the door, a bit of heat in his hand in case this was a trap of some kind. On the other side he found himself in a hall with a couple of other doors, one of which had a laughing clown with its back to them.

He was tempted to see if could sneak past before Mr. Peabody took that decision out of his hands by running forward and leaping onto the Carnivorous Clown’s back, the dog digging its teeth into the monster’s neck.

“Stupid dog!” He growled, before setting the kid down as the clown stumbled back into the hall, knowing a fight was inevitable now.

At least until some teenager ran out of the room and stabbed what looked like a broken mop into the clown’s chest. The monster seemed to struggle for a few more seconds before slowly going limp and falling to the floor under the combined assault of the teen and dog.

“We’re safe…” The darkhaired teen gasped, his eyes drifting towards Mr. Peabody before petting the dog. “Thanks for the save boy.”

“Not sure if I’d call us safe with how many of these things are out there.” He warned the teen, causing the boy’s attention to snap to him and the child. The latter of which made the teen tense up.

“What is that? A-a mini-clown?” The teen asked, trying -(and failing)- to remove his makeshift spear from the clown.

“He’s a kid.” Gregory answered the obvious. “He was separated from his sister and I couldn’t exactly leave a kid out there in this mess.”

“That’s…” The teen paused before nodding and adjusting his leather jacket. “Yeah, sorry… It’s just he’s kind of dressed like…”

“Given what I’ve overheard I’m sure they find doing a kid up like them hilarious.” Gregory shrugged, still standing between the kid and the teen. “This whole nightmare seems to be some kind of festival to them.”

“Y-yeah, it does…” The teen agreed, giving up on the spear.

Not letting his guard down just yet, Gregory gave the teen a proper once over. Taking note of how torn up his jacket and pants were, as well as the bloodstains on him. (Kid ‘s been through the ringer, that much is clear.)

“Who-who are you talking to?” A feminine voice asked, as another teenager stepped out of the room the first had been hiding in. “O-oh! H-hello…”

“Hey.” He awkwardly waved, feeling more awkward as another person entered the conversation. Thankfully he was saved from this as a door slammed somewhere in the building, “They’re searching the building.”

“Shit. We need to run!” The male teenager hissed, grabbing the girl’s wrist.

“No. You need to hide.” He disagreed, moving to pick the Carnivorous Clown’s corpse up. (Well, at least this thing is lighter than a human corpse.)

“What are you doing?!” The boy hissed.

“Faking an escape path.” He quietly explained, before pulling his arm back and punching the clown as hard as he could, knocking it a bit down the hall while leaving a streak of blood on the wall. To double down on this he pulled out one of his cigarettes before tearing it in half and lighting the end.

“In the closet.” He ordered as he tossed the cigarette down the hall. “If we’re lucky they’ll take the bait and move on.”

“And why shouldn’t we just run?” The boy frowned.

He gave the teen a look as he motioned for the lost child to enter the room, his heart breaking a little with the way the kid’s eyes were locked on the clown corpse. “How much more running can you do before they catch you?”

The teen looked away from him. “That’s…”

Before the boy could figure out what ‘that’ was, another door slammed closer by and he took the choice out of the teen’s hand by shoving him in the room and quickly entering. Something Mr. Peabody was quick to follow up on, allowing him to close the door behind him even as it trapped them in the dark.

He put a finger to his lips as he heard a scuffling in the hall, a sound that had the child clinging to his leg in fear.

Straining his ears, he could just make out a voice halfway between a growl and hiss speaking. “The firestarter killed this one…”

“Just a part of the game. The weak get culled while the strong have their fun.” A second dismissed. “Either way they’ll be caught by sunrise.”

“I’m not so sure… This one has magic of his own…” A third still, noted.

“A few mages always slip in.” The second voice pointed out. “I’m pretty sure the Ringmaster lets them in to let other Nobles have their fun. We can only hope to catch such rare prey for ourselves before…”

The voices trailed off too far for him to hear. Still he counted to a hundred, before risking searching for a light switch. After a moment, and a wince as his eyes adjusted, the lights turned on to reveal he and the rest of this little group were in a storage room of some kind, the walls lined with shelves full of what looked like cleaning supplies.

“Okay… Keep quiet, but I think we’ve bought ourselves a bit of breathing room now.” He told everyone, as he took in the worn and weary looks everyone was sporting.

“So…” The female teenager began. “What now?”